Sunday, April 8, 2007

Bernard Lewis, the renowned historian of the Middle East who celebrated his 90th birthday in 2006, has provided much of the ideological ammunition for the Bush administration policy of Middle East transformation and global war on terror. A favorite of neoconservatives, Lewis, born in England and a naturalized U.S. citizen since 1982, was bestowed in 2007 with the annual Irving Kristol award from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Previous recipients of AEI's yearly award include Dick Cheney, Robert Bork, David Packard, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan, Michael Novak, Clarence Thomas, and Norman Podhoretz. According to a Wall Street Journal account of the awards ceremony, Lewis "described Muslim migration to Europe as an Islamic attack on the West and defended the Crusades as 'a late, limited and unsuccessful imitation of the jihad' that spread Islam across much of the globe." Lewis gave a "ringing endorsement of the ill-fated Crusades," and "he made the point that the Crusades, as atrocious as they were, were nonetheless an understandable response to the Islamic onslaught of the preceding centuries, and that it was ridiculous to apologize for them" (Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2007).

About Us

No One is Illegal-Vancouver is a grassroots anti-colonial immigrant/refugee rights community collective with leadership from members of migrant and/or racialized backgrounds.
As a movement for self-determination that challenges the ideology of immigration controls, we are in full confrontation with Canadian border policies; denouncing and taking action to combat racial profiling, detention and deportation, the national security apparatus, law enforcement brutality, and exploitative working conditions of migrants. We stand in solidarity with indigenous struggles against colonization across Turtle Island and also place ourselves within the broader movement for global justice struggling against capitalism, homophobia, occupation, patriarchy, poverty, war, and other systems of oppression and exploitation.

No One Is Illegal - Vancouver

Our educational work involves furthering an anti-imperialist, anti-war, and anticapitalist analysis that links the "War on Terror" abroad to the racist "Fortress North America" at home. We struggle for the right for our communities to maintain their livelihoods and resist war, occupation, and displacement, while building alliances and supporting indigenous sisters and brothers fighting theft of land and displacement. Our work is carried out through various strategies including public awareness events, direct support work with refugees and undocumented migrants, multilingual community political/legal forums, fighting back through rallies and direct actions, and ongoing campaigns and projects.